Daahn Rising

by Lyons, Brenna

  Yes, I was, and now I know it. And so do they.

  That fact was the one reason she kept her thumb on the lock. Innocent of the plan or not, Miri had been used by the Xxan to stage the attack. She might have to fight her way out.

  “Lower your weapon, Johns,” one of the humans ordered.

  She spied the black on black insignia of a lieutenant, the only protection he’d have on a world that obeyed the Interstellar War Pact. Failure to display rank and affiliation could see him dead.

  I have no insignia. No doubt, the Xxan had planned it that way. She hadn’t questioned it, because this had been presented as a diplomatic mission and she as an honored representative of the Xxan. Now she was a combatant. They could kill her without pause. And likely will.

  Miri took a step back into the tunnel she’d come out of, her trembling more severe. She’d passed a crosstunnel ten meters back. If she could reach it —

  The arms suddenly encircling her were as strong as her Xxan-Dree trainer’s. Miri didn’t waste time questioning who he was or how he’d managed to sneak up on her. As he ripped the weapon from her hand, Miri moved — down, then in a flowing movement around his body.

  He was quick... and skilled. Her trainers had never put her through her paces so strenuously. Every move to escape was met with a block. Every move to incapacitate him for a moment was countered skillfully. Miri was considering doing him real harm when the end came.

  It was a move she’d never encountered before, either with her Xxan-Dree trainer or her human martial trainer. One moment, she was on her way to freedom. The next, Miri was facedown on the stone, her wrists captured behind her back, locked in his larger hands. The length of his body pinned her down, spikes of pain from her injured abdomen making her gasp for breath.

  “Concede,” he grumbled.

  Miri pressed her forehead to the smooth stone floor, abruptly weary. “It would seem... I have no choice in the matter.”

  His laughter was low and dark... but not cruel, as she usually experienced. “An accurate assessment.”

  “If you’re through dancing with her,” another voice interrupted. “Perhaps you would verify her identity, Daahn?”

  Miri braced herself for the sting of a blood test that never came. Her captor nuzzled at her neck, and she jerked at his hold, panic driving her to flee. He pushed her down with a wordless growl, stroking his tongue up the side column of her neck to her jaw.

  Every muscle in her body tightened in fury. How dare he examine her so intimately! A hiss of warning escaped her lips.

  His next move stunned her, rendering Miri a babe in his hands. His tongue stroked over her mating stripe, and her body responded fiercely. Even before she felt the press of his erection to the back of her thigh, Miri’s body had slicked to welcome him in, the pains fading into the background for once. Her glands released Zhigaaah, the female sex pheromone, making her head swim.

  “You are mine, little blue,” he whispered.

  She shivered in delight, needing him to finish what he’d started. Another voice buzzed at the edges of her consciousness, drowned out by the cascade of Zhigaaah.

  “She’s the one,” the male over her attested.

  Miri’s blood went cold at that pronouncement. Her eyes pricked in tears she couldn’t bear to shed. She swallowed down a sob, then forced words out, feigning confidence she didn’t feel and pride she had no right to display. All the while, she nursed the loss of the illusion stoically... as she’d done before.

  “I suppose you should kill me now, though I am hardly worth the energy. If my —” They aren’t my people. I have no people. “If the Xxan find me, they will kill me, and I have no information to give you. I am worse than useless to either side now.”

  There was a moment of tense silence. Miri forced her breathing to even.

  “Are you?” the one over her challenged.

  Daahn. They said his name was Daahn. And she thought she’d spied the insignia of a commander on his uniform. Commander Daahn.

  Her muscles ached. “Yes, I am.” She prepared for the blast that would kill her. Or would he break her neck? It would save them the energy of killing a useless prisoner.

  There was another moment of silence. “I see. Jacks... the shackles, please.”

  Miri didn’t fight the restraints. She didn’t intend to fight anything they did. If they wanted to question her, even to beat nonexistent information from her, it would still be a gentler death than the Xxan would grant her.

  Chapter Two

  Aleeks stared down at his prisoner, wondering at her reaction. He’d seen Mirienne Johns take down two dozen of the Xxanian command, three of them Grea Elders, to allow all but the first slain human — Councilor Allen, may the stars welcome him home — the chance to escape the trap set for them.

  Still, Mirienne wasn’t fighting his hold on her arm. She wasn’t attempting to slow them. She wasn’t even examining her captors and her situation for possible corridors to escape. She was silent, biddable... but still proud.

  But why? Was this just another step in the plan? Was she meant to be captured, in order to attack later? Or had she truly been surprised by the Xxan’s duplicity and deception?

  “Ahead,” Arris directed him, pointing the way, no doubt because Aleeks had veered off slightly in his inattention.

  Aleeks nodded, tugging Mirienne toward the waiting warship. She glanced at it, then away, matching his long-legged gait. She winced, half closing her eyes, dropping her chin back to her chest as it had been for nearly the entire trip back.

  “Jacks,” Aleeks called out, not taking his eyes off the prisoner, though he was certain she didn’t mean to attack him.

  “Yeah?” the human replied distractedly.

  “Glasses.” He put his free hand out for them.

  “But you have —”

  Aleeks glared at him, knowing full well that it unnerved humans, even with his dark glasses in place.

  “Got it,” Jacks grumbled. He pulled his own glasses from the padded case at his back and settled them in Aleeks’s hand.

  Aleeks pulled Mirienne to a stop. She hesitated, then raised her head slowly to meet his gaze. He settled Jacks’s glasses on her face, shading her eyes.

  Mirienne moved her mouth as if to speak, then closed it. Her nostrils flared, and her tongue appeared at her lips, taking in his scent. The sour smell of adrenaline poured off her, and her muscles tensed. Aleeks grasped her other arm, shaking his head slightly in warning, and she looked away. A tremor worked through her body, then went still.

  “Daahn, we’re out of time,” Jacks reminded him.

  “Right.” He turned her toward the waiting ramp.

  From above, Captain Seaver’s voice bellowed out, “I hope this madness was worth it, Daahn.”

  “It wasn’t,” Mirienne breathed.

  “We’ll see,” Aleeks answered his CO. “It was worth a try.”

  Despite her statement and her fear, she preceded him up the ramp.

  Seaver scowled down at her. “Lock her down. We’ll get to her once we’re clear.”

  Aleeks started to lead her away.

  “Not you,” the captain ordered. “Hand her off to Jackson.”

  Aleeks released her as the human lieutenant took hold of her opposite arm. He watched long enough to ensure that Jacks would treat her fairly... and long enough to see her single peek back at him.

  Seaver didn’t address him immediately. The captain had more important things to do... like getting them the hell off Xxania Hethhh and into human-controlled space, where they could dock with their carrier. At that point, Mirienne Johns would be transferred from the lock-seat to a cell aboard the carrier.

  Luckily, the trip to the rendezvous point didn’t take long. With a transport still out, their carrier was the one guarding the fleet’s back, lagging behind the rest, though not by much.

  Aleeks spent the time at tactical. The others probably thought he anticipated problems with Mirienne. He didn’t, but it didn’t hurt
to appear vigilant.

  On their way down the ramp into the carrier’s primary landing bay, Seaver finally broke the silence. “Well, we’ve got her, Daahn. Now explain to me why we want her.”

  He considered that. “If it was a setup, she would have taken out only cannon fodder. She went not only for the Subdominants and Dominants, but also for the Grea Elders.”

  “It could have been a coup,” Seaver suggested, handing off a docking order to a waiting deck chief.

  “No. She ran from the Xxan, and though she had ample time to do it, Johns didn’t try to harm us.”

  Seaver’s eyes narrowed. “She allowed herself to be taken?”

  “No, but she didn’t attack me, either. She just tried to escape me... at first.”

  His captain’s raised eyebrow asked the question silently.

  “Mirienne... Johns expects us to kill her, eventually. She thinks one side or the other will. Once she was caught —”

  “She should have fought,” Seaver surmised. “She had nothing to lose.”

  “She had nothing to gain,” Aleeks countered. “Not against seven of us and without her weapons.”

  The captain sighed. “And if she doesn’t have information about their military?” he asked.

  “If she turned against the Xxan that way, Mirienne Johns would be a good ally. Military information or not, she has information from inside Xxania Uuaahth, current information. And she’s well trained.”

  Saying that sent an atypical spike of annoyance through him. It made little sense that he could fathom. He worked with female soldiers every day, but the idea of Mirienne Johns fighting was different somehow.

  “If we could trust her,” Seaver cautioned.

  “If it comes to that, I can assure it.” But if it came to that, she wouldn’t be permitted to don a uniform.

  It could go that way. The residue of Zhigaaah in his bloodstream had Aleeks semierect and aching to follow through. Just the scent of Zhigaaah, that of a female not related to him and untainted by Zhigaaal, which would indicate mating, was enough to catch a Dominant’s attention, but Mirienne was a potent female. The sight and taste of her blue mating stripe, confirming her in her fertile window, had been too enticing to let pass without a sample. How she’d made it this long unmated...

  Well, that probably went without saying. She wasn’t Xxanian. If his suspicions were founded, the Xxan had never created a natural crossbreed like he and his seir were.

  “How... ? Whoa —” Seaver’s face paled, and he swallowed hard. “You mean, you’ll... ? Uh...”

  Aleeks smiled at the captain’s inability or unwillingness to face the fact that one of his officers was a crossbreed with very Xxanian mating habits, that he could — and ultimately would bind a female to him until they were nearly inseparable. Once mated, Aleeks and his mate would crave each other. If he died, she would pine to death. If she died, it would send him into a killing rage, and if he survived long past it, it was unlikely he’d mate again.

  The captain’s fear of and distaste for the idea of such a commitment was common among humans, and so they pretended it wasn’t a reality in their crossbred associates. It was a mental block many humans suffered from.

  Aleeks was aware that Seaver could see the serrated hunting teeth surrounding his very human incisors and canines. Smiling a big, toothy grin wasn’t an expression he indulged in often. Seaver’s shudder of revulsion illustrated why he usually stifled the urge.

  “You’ll —” Seaver took a step away from him. “You’ll want to handle her questioning then.”

  “I insist.”

  The captain waved him away.

  Aleeks headed for the primary cell block, anticipating seeing her again. He coded into the block, nodding to the guard on the way past the desk. The door lock clicked open for him, and Aleeks pushed it wide, then stopped in the doorway, horrified.

  Mirienne lay curled on the bunk, her eyes squeezed shut and weeping, her cheeks red and ravaged.

  Damn you, Jacks. The lieutenant had taken his glasses back and left her in agony in a fully lit room.

  “Fifteen percent,” Aleeks ordered. “The lighting is never to go above twenty percent, but no more than fifteen percent in the next three days.” She’d need at least that long to heal from this assault.

  “Yes, sir.” The guard punched Aleeks’s orders into the console before him without question, and the lighting inside the cell dropped to a comfortable level for Xxanian eyes.

  Aleeks strode inside, closing the door behind him, noting in annoyance that the lock engaged. She was hardly a threat in this state.

  He didn’t waste time. Aleeks wet a cloth with cool water and went to her, pressing it to Mirienne’s swollen face. A half-swallowed sob escaped her lips, and her shivering form jerked in response to the touch.

  The effects of tears on her sensitive crossbred skin would be nearly as agonizing as the light was to her fully Xxanian eyes. It was one of the few reasons Aleeks didn’t curse his own inability to tear.

  At a loss to comfort her, Aleeks searched out a parent’s soothing rumble in the Xxan language. It was surely something she’d heard before.

  “Do not insult me,” she snapped in English.

  Startled, he fumbled for words in his primary language. “I didn’t mean to insinuate that you are a child,” he offered by way of apology.

  “No. Of course not. Instead, you insult me by assuming I wish to speak Xxan.” There was a note of hurt underlying her anger.

  “Would an Earth lullaby be more to your taste?” he asked in exasperation.

  Mirienne hesitated, her brow furrowing against his fingertips. “I don’t know what lullaby is,” she admitted.

  “Then you weren’t —” Aleeks bit off the rest of the retort, aware of how hurtful it was to suggest she hadn’t been raised right. “I’ll refresh the cloth.”

  He could hear her moving on the bunk, see wisps of that movement at the corner of the mirror, and he removed his glasses to see better in the semidarkness. It was no surprise to find her upright and leaning against the wall, her lower legs hanging over the edge of the narrow sleeping surface. The fact that her eyes were open, however, was surprising.

  Mirienne was in misery. Aleeks went to her, wasting only a moment to take in her red-gold, slitted eyes before he pressed the cloth to them again.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  Her jaw tightened. “That I’m Xxan enough to require darkness or that I’m human enough to cry salt tears when the light —”

  “I’m sorry that Jacks did this to you.”

  For a moment, she was silent. “Why... are you doing this?”

  “Caring for you? You’re injured.”

  “Do humans always care for their prisoners?”

  “I’m not human,” he reminded her.

  “More than I am.” She sighed.

  “I can’t cry.”

  People believed that made Aleeks cold, but he felt as deeply as anyone else did. He simply couldn’t express it the same way they did. He didn’t sweat. He didn’t blush or pale... unless he was ill. He often chose not to smile.

  “The Xxan would have loved you.”

  Aleeks’s move to question that was cut short.

  “I don’t need my eyes to answer the charges against me,” she stated, her spine stiffening.

  “Should there be charges against you?” He kept his tone cool and nonjudgmental.

  “Would you believe me if I claimed there shouldn’t be?” The bite of cynicism was no surprise.

  Yes. “Maybe. You did kill three of the Grea Elders.”

  “That doesn’t make me your ally,” she pointed out. “You have no choice but to assume me part of the plot against you. I know that.”

  “And you allowed me to bring you here. What does that tell me?” Aleeks wasn’t certain what it told him, but he wanted to hear what she thought it did.

  “Should I have killed you to escape deeper into the tunnels?” she countered.

 
“You could have tried.” And failed. Mirienne was good, but she wasn’t that good. She was a much better shot than she was at hand-to-hand combat.

  She faltered, something incoherent emerging before words did. “I don’t understand you.”

  “You didn’t know what the Grea Elders intended,” he stated confidently.

  ****

  Miri took a calming breath. She didn’t understand why he bothered to play this game, but she’d answer honestly, nonetheless. “No. I knew nothing about the deception.”

  She counted the heartbeats, hardly daring to breathe. Commander Daahn had no reason to believe her. No sane warrior would.

  That left him with only a few choices. Would he call her a liar? Would he try to prove her a liar? Would he try to beat some other truth from her? Or would he simply kill her?

  “You’ve trained extensively,” he noted. “Enough to attempt to escape me without harming me... in at least five different forms, including high Xxan.”

  So he wants to prove I’m lying. Miri chose not to answer him. What would be the point?

  “You didn’t even take the lock off your weapon,” he continued.

  “I was ready to. I would have, if forced to it.”

  “Would you really?” That was a taunt.

  She forced down her urge to strike at him.

  The cloth left her face, but he didn’t move away to freshen it again. Miri opened her aching eyes, locking on the gold-green of his. The intensity of his gaze unnerved her, and her heart fluttered as if she were his prey.

  “What were you trained for, Mirienne?” he asked bluntly.

  “To be a negotiator. I believed it, until...”

  He tossed the cloth into the sink without looking in that direction. “Until the Xxan started shooting at us.”

  “Yes. So... you see, there really is nothing I can tell you.” Miri steeled herself for his decision to kill her... or to torture her for information she didn’t have. Master S’sie would have already done so.

  “You can tell me why you were trained for war,” he replied in a voice that announced his patience was wearing thin.

  “Sometimes negotiations fail.” I’ve always been told I would fail. I thought they were just unkind words; I didn’t know I’d been set up to fail.